France’s President Sarcozy, on meeting Obama in 2009, found him to be “unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated.” I also recall him portraying Obama as a weak man, but no time this morning to run that down.

A new book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, Double Down, quotes Obama as saying “I’m really good at killing people, ” in reference to the Pentagon’s drone program. That could be sardonic and cynical, of course.

But imagine a weak man who likes killing from a distance, free of reprisal. That is a coward.

Maybe so, maybe not. I am writing this because it is my belief that the president is an unimportant man in our system, hired to be the public face of a killing machine and a mirror for our own illusions. Such a man was Ronald Reagan, unschooled, unoriginal, even stupid about many things, hired to play a role. So addled was he by Alzheimer’s in his second term that he could not place countries on the map. “He” was the collective work of PR people, montage of TV images, no more in charge than a naked emperor.

Obama could be real, decisive, courageous. He could be fake, indecisive (not that his “decisions” matter), but effective as a communicator. He could be in the employ not of the American people but of a power behind our government, those who offed JFK and gave us 9/11.

In that case, he willingly took office knowing there would be a gun at his head, also knowing it would never have to be fired. That would make him a charlatan and a traitor.

I am working my way through Quigley’s tome, Tragedy and Hope, as we travel and in our spare time. I’m on page 504, about 700 to go. It’s a pleasurable reading experience, hardly a beach book but written in such a readable style that it flows smoothly.

Part of what I picked up, and this was quite a few pages back (in a book written in 1965), is the notion Americans have that our political system is similar to Britain’s. Nothing could be further from the truth, says Quigley.

For one thing, very little is codified in Britain – there is no constitution, but rather a tangle of conventions and power centers. “Conventions” are not laws that can be enforced or interpreted. The centers of power ebb and flow. At times, corporations that invested overseas during the zenith of empire have run the show, while at other times, such as now, London banks have an upper hand. The monarchy has power, but has to stay within its bounds, as they can just as easily be dispensed with. However, the other centers can resort to the monarchy to achieve some goals, perhaps just as political cover. That’s not clear to me – I don’t know if her majesty is really any more than a pretty nice girl.

The most stable governing force is the aristocracy, a few hundred families. The most important of these send their children to Eton or Harrow, while others settle for Cambridge or Oxford. Those credentials are necessary to enter the church, legal profession, judiciary, House of Lords of course, but even the House of Commons. Very few enter the lower house without credentials.

The “education” they received is not at all as we perceive it – it is not vocational, a training of intelligence nor a pursuit of truth. It merely reinforces a moral outlook, class structure, leadership, and the British idea of sportsmanship.

I was looking for similarities in our system, and have always assumed the our Senate was derived from the House of Lords. Not so. The House of Lords has veto power over everything, and can interpret anything to its own liking. They are not subject to ballots. This is far more similar to our Supreme Court than a legislative branch.

The most powerful legislative force is the Cabinet, always comprised of the aristocrats. It is there that laws are written. The House of Commons is a rubber stamp. The cabinet can override anything it wants. However, certain matters are referred to the lower house for public discussion to gauge public reaction. So the recent vote to not attack Syria was not binding. However, the Commons determined that the public mood would not tolerate another war, and so were allowed to vote against it. They really cannot make their own decisions. That’s all for show. That vote had no legal power.

It appears that there is no “legal” authority there. Technically anyone can access the courts for redress. In reality, everyone knows better. Technically the members of the House of Commons appoint the cabinet. In reality, that is predetermined by the leaders of the parties in power, and there is no ballots cast for leadership. There is no free press or speech, no Bill of Rights. It’s a system that relies on tradition for its sustainability, as there are no formal public contracts.

Quite a mess, but it seems to work. As we dispense with our own constitution and Bill of rights, people often invoke fascism or Hitler. More likely we are drifting back to the ways of our mother country.

This is completely off-subject, again, the more suitable name for this blog. We are in R&R today, our only walking from here to the restaurant and back. Later we will walk to the pool. And back.

I was watching CNN world news today, talking about the Venezuelan economy and all the trouble it endures. Inflation is rampant, there are food shortages, and trouble is brewing in the streets. Though CNN did not say so, it is a failure of any alternative to the “capitalism,” or more properly corporate global imperialism.

No one will believe me anyway, another suggested name for this blog, but none of that is true. Venezuela is under attack by all of the forces of the US military-industrial complex. The squeeze is on, food is withheld by those who control the food supply, and money does not flow freely. Military forces are on the border, US agents are busily buying off the military to stage another coup. The leaders much watch their backs, and in so doing are branded tyrants. What a beautiful scam! The idea is to make the people give up – then the shelves again have food and currency becomes dependable.

How do I know this? It’s documented – not Venezuela, but rather Chile when Allende took power by means of the ballot. It did not take but a few weeks before the US was fomenting military coup within the ranks, food shortages started, and eventually the ax – Allende murdered, and the crypto-NAZI Pinochet came to power with US blessing. Following that were disappearances, torture, open murder, secret police, and even an assassination on the streets of Washington, DC. All with approval of the overlord.

The leaders and aristocrats and military of the US do not weep for poverty or torture or human rights. These concerns are mere window dressing. The US fears but one thing: That a country will break free of control, go its own way, and succeed. People wonder why little Cuba is under embargo 54 years after Battista was overthrown. I just answered that question. No one will believe it.

I put the photo and caption up on the left here not because I am going to engage in a round of Bachmann bashing, very easy to do. I am also not going to talk about the insanity of selling off valuable public assets, the price-of-everything mindset. It’s enough to know that the only reason Yosemite is so valuable is because it has not been privatized to the degree that other naturally beautiful landscapes have, like for instance Malibu Beach, mostly inaccessible to the public.
Continue reading “Bachmann in overdrive” →

They act.

Meanwhile, Obama gives good speech. He could end this shutdown this minute with an executive order. But he won’t. He’s part of it. In the end, he’ll bargain and give away more things important to his base. That’s who he is.

The Syria standoff has been a source of hope. I’m encouraged that the US attack on civilization that started in September of 2011 may have lost its steam. If I were religious, this would be my prayer.

One of the indications is the new public posture the Russians have taken. They have assumed the moral high ground. In his New York Times op-ed, Vladimir Putin lectured the US administration about democracy, the United Nations charter, and made reference to God in his closing lines.

Why the op-ed was even allowed to appear is another thread, as it indicates a crack in the fissure of our oligarchical structure. Power is cloaked and resides in various centers, and here one center sent a message in coded form to the White House to stand down. Putin might be a player or a pawn, but the message was clear. In Syria, they had been outfoxed.

Putin also publicly called John Kerry a liar. I took some encouragement from that, for even though all politicians lie and diplomacy is just another form, Kerry seems an especially despicable man. Like George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney, he’s creepy down to his shoes, some kind of Ted Bundy-like monster residing within. Nonetheless, in diplomatic circles, using the “l” word is usually a sign of retreat. In this case the US so overplayed its hand that it signaled a victory dance.

That was colossal stupidity by the US players, and no doubt Kerry is done, Obama is gelded, and the world is safer for a while as the US formulates new plans for chaos and searches for new domestic actors.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov recently said that the situation in Syria was “guided chaos,” and that the US is currently trying to “bribe” Russia into agreeing to a military attack on Syria. The Russians have presented evidence to UN inspectors that the shells used in the attack were Soviet-made from back in the 1970’s. Since Syria possesses far more sophisticated weaponry made in the 1990’s, they labeled use of these shells as a crude attempt to lay blame on the Assad regime for a what was really deliberate act of false-flag terrorism.

Elsewhere Russian sources noted that the victims that appeared in footage shown to US audiences were not to be found as inspectors examined the scene, and wondered with all of the dead children shown why there were no parents around.

That’s where it gets really creepy, as the US reveals its Bundy-ness. Rebel terrorists had earlier attacked remote villages and kidnapped a large group of children, according to the Russians, who listed the names of the missing kids. The suggestion is that the children in the footage, dead or alive, were props from that incident. That could be a Russian lie, but when they occupy the moral high ground, they can pull it off.

That’s your country, folks. Our political leaders hide behind human masks for the American public, and our state-controlled media protects them, but they are puppets fronting for world-class psychopaths and criminals.

This is a response from me to Polish Wolf over at his Intelligent Discontent blog. We’ve had a long back-and-forth, and it takes so much time to answer him that my urge to write is gone for the day. This is my take on events as they have played out with the Syrian confrontation.
Continue reading “My take on Syrian agitprop failure” →

Barack Obama, if you ignore surface phenomena, is just another Neocon. This was apparent in his retention of Robert Gates at the Pentagon (I cannot bring myself to use the word “defense”) and appointment of Israeli citizen Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff when he took office. As a Democrat, he is effectively cloaked. He has allowed the NeoCon faction to move forward with their Post-9/11 agenda of aggressive war in the Middle East. He’s useful.

In today’s New York Times, there is an op-ed piece by Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is highly significant. The Times, which allowed (apparent) CIA mole Judith Miller front-page prominence during the agitprop campaign leading up to the Iraq war, has not had a change of course or heart. But it is a frontispiece behind which there is obviously a squabble going on. Otherwise, Putin would not have access to the pages of the venerable state organ. There is obviously not unanimity within the ruling class that the US should attack Syria.

I cannot overstate the significance of this move by the powers behind the Times. Imagine that Leonid Brezhnev were allowed op-ed space there to criticize the Johnson or Nixon Administration prosecution of the Vietnam War. It’s just not done!

That significance aside, the piece is worth reading, especially since it echos a warning that has gone around the world but has not been mentioned in US mainstream news, that the Syrian terrorists are planning a false-flag attack on Israel to give them and the US further cause for aggressive war.

Never let it be said that I am not susceptible to advertising. We have gone without satellite TV since last spring, but normally hook up in the fall and winter. We’ve been using DirecTV for years now, and like Coke/Pepsi Democrat/Republican, the alternative is Dish Network. The latter offered a device called the “Hopper” that allowed us to skip advertising, and I bought in. Here’s what it does: You must record all of a given network’s offerings all evening on any given night. There are only four choices, FOX, NBC, ABC and CBS, or Coke/Coke/Pepsi/Pepsi.* The scads of cable channels that are so riddled with advertising that they are unwatchable are not options for this service.
Continue reading “Coke/Coke/Pepsi/Pepsi” →

I have participated in press conferences in the past, as a member of Montana Wilderness Association and when campaigning for Nader. It’s been many a year, and I have better insight now. Such affairs were, for me, an ego trip, to see my face on TV and hear my name. Beyond that, I was merely a tool, especially for MWA – I was given a script, at that time by John Gatchell, and adhered to it. That’s not a good thing, but is where I was at intellectually at that time. It would have been more honest if Gatchell had done the thing himself, but MWA liked to foster a grassroots feel, and so used civilians to front for the professional staff. That was my role.

I do have one reflection of value from those experiences. We had a dog that I used to walk daily, and each time we passed a certain fenced yard she would bare her teeth and bark viciously at the dog on the other side. She was menacing. Panda (her name when we got her) was one mean bitch.

However, if she came face-to-face with the same dog and without a fence, she was docile, merely touching nose and sniffing butt.

The reporters who covered our press conferences back then manifested something similar. Because we were liberal and environmentalists, they were free to ask us any question whether it was confrontational, thoughtful or burrowing. They could actually do their jobs.

I also sat through press conferences these same reporters were part of, but with Senator Conrad Burns at the helm. They were no longer tough, and instead diligently took notes as Burns spoke down to them. Their questions were more obsequious than curious, their mission to deliver Burns’ message to the public. They stopped being journalists and became mere scriveners.

I watched Charlie Rose interview Syrian President Bashar Assad last night, and thought of Panda and the fence. Charlie was actually a journalist of sorts, pushy, accusatory, unwilling to accept pat answers. He’s not free to be so forceful with other guests, and isn’t. Put him opposite a powerful American, and he becomes a butt sniffer.